Our 2021 Virtual Speaker Series is back at 7pm on Thursday, March 25 with a look at how journalism in Whistler has changed with Paul Burrows, Charlie Doyle, Bob Barnett, and Clare Ogilvie. Whistler has been served by multiple publications with varying aims since the 1970s despite a relatively small population, but how did it all get started?
You can attend our 2021 Speaker Series events on Zoom for free by registering here or contacting us at the Whistler Museum. Events feature interviews with our speakers followed by a live (virtual) Q&A with the speakers and audience.
Our Virtual Speaker Series is being held using Zoom. To attend the event, you do not need to have a Zoom account or a camera on your device. If you register through the Eventbrite link, you will be able to attend the event through the online event page on Eventbrite. If you register by contacting us directly at the museum, we will send you a link to the event via email. You can then attend simply by clicking on the link after 6:55 pm on the day of the event. If you have any questions about attending any of our Virtual Speaker Series, please contact us!
We are also excited to announce that the traveling exhibit Land of Thundering Snow from the Revelstoke Museum & Archives has been extended through Saturday, April 17th! If you haven’t been able to see it yet, you now have over two extra weeks to fit in a visit to the museum!
Last Thursday (December 17) we were very excited to open Land of Thundering Snow, the first traveling exhibit that the Whistler Museum has hosted since moving into our current building in 2009.
While Whistler will be the first museum to host the physical exhibit, Land of Thundering Snow began as a virtual exhibit launched by the Revelstoke Museum and Archives in partnership with Parks Canada and Avalanche Canada in 2015. (find it here) The exhibit explores the history of snow research and avalanche safety in Canada, from a fatal avalanche in 1910 that took the lives of 58 rail workers in Rogers Pass to the creation of Avalanche Canada in 2004. The virtual exhibit was reportedly the first time that the history of Canadian avalanches had been gathered together in one place. The content for both the virtual and physical exhibit was developed by retired Parks Canada biologist and naturalist Dr. John Woods.
Come check out Land of Thundering Snow and discover how an entire exhibit can be transported in just one (very impressive) box!
In preparation for hosting the exhibit, we’ve taken a look at what we have in our own collections related to avalanches and avalanche safety, from photographs to films to oral histories. We also invited anyone with their own avalanche story from the area to share it with us. We ended up learning quite a bit about one specific avalanche that took place on Whistler Mountain in 1978.
Beginning on March 6, 1978, a storm system brought significant snowfall on the mountain. On March 8, patrollers headed out to do avalanche control on Whistler’s peak. At the time, two patrollers from Snowbird in Utah were visiting Whistler as part of a training exchange and joined the group heading out that morning.
While the morning had started out clear, by the time the patrollers were out visibility had become quite limited. A shot from an avalauncher was fired into the Whistler Peak North Face but, due to the lack of visibility, it was unclear what the result of the shot was. Over the course of controlling that morning, an avalanche began on the North Face and caught two patrollers who were traversing below: Bruce Watt of Whistler and Rick Mandahl of Snowbird.
MAN, DOG & MOUNTAIN – Patroller Bruce Watt with his rescue dog Radar at the top of Whistler. Whistler Question Collection.
Watt was recovered almost immediately as he had managed to get a hand above the snow. It took seven minutes to locate and receive Mandahl using transceivers. Luckily, both were relatively unharmed.
On March 15, the avalanche and recoveries made the front page of the Whistler Question, and the avalanche was also recounted in a larger report on avalanche accidents by Chris Stethem, which provided a lot of factual information but did not include personal accounts.
This image of the slide was included in the official report. Photo courtesy of Chris Stethem.
If you have been following the Whistler Museum’s social media over the past couple of weeks, however, you might have seen two accounts of this avalanche from patrollers who were involved: Bruce Watt and John Hetherington. (You can find their stories here and here.) Their personal accounts of the avalanche provide information that neither the newspaper nor an official report would include, such as what was going through Watt’s head as he was caught or how Hetherington had to turn off his radio in order to hear the transceiver while searching for Mandahl.
If you have an avalanche story from the area that you would like to share with the museum, we will be continuing to gather and share more local information about avalanches while Land of Thundering Snow is exhibited through March 31, 2021. We Would love to hear from you, or see you at the exhibit!
Next month we will be opening Land of Thundering Snow, a traveling exhibit created by the Revelstoke Museum & Archives. The exhibit complements Revelstoke Museum’s virtual exhibit of the same name, which examines the history and impact of snow avalanches across Canada, and we are very excited to be its first stop through March 2021!
When we think about avalanches in Whistler, one of the first things to come to mind is often the sound of avalanche control that echoes through the valley in the winter.
An avalanche set off during control on Whistler Mountain. George Benjamin Collection.
According to John Hetherington, who joined Whistler Mountain’s pro ski patrol for the 1967/68 season, early avalanche control was often “putting a bunch of Forcite dynamite sticks together and going out and going, ‘I think we should throw some over here, and I think we should throw some over there.'” Over time the patrollers learned which slopes and conditions were more likely to have an avalanche, but it was still mostly done by instinct and past experience.
In 1978, Hetherington and Chris Stehem, a former patroller then working as Whistler Mountain’s Safety Supervisor, wrote “Whistler Mountain Avalanche Control Programme,” a technical memorandum, describing the methods then used by Whistler patrollers and providing an idea of a typical morning. Documents such as this are incredibly useful for learning about past procedures and the development of current practices.
Over a typical season, patrollers would use approximately 1,000 avalauncher rounds and 2,000 hand-charges containing Submagel 95%, a nitroglycerin explosive. Hand-charges were most often used singly but were sometimes combined into doubles or triples in “special circumstances”. For control purposes, Whistler Mountain was divided into three sections, Zones A, B & C. The zones would be covered by teams of two using their own knowledge of the area and radios to communicate.
Some recognizable patrollers examine the data at the Alpine Office. George Benjamin Collection.
On a typical control day, 7 am would see ten to twelve patrollers heading up Whistler Mountain to the Alpine Office at 1,850 m. Along the way, weather data, snowfall readings, and wind readers were taken. Once at the Alpine Office, one patroller would take weather readings while the others would begin preparing the day’s charges. The patrol leader would make an initial evaluation of the avalanche hazard and decide on the control measures.
On an average day, three hand-charge teams and one avalanche gun team would be sent out by 8 am to cover Zone A. A second gun team would then head out to clear the more inaccessible slopes of Zones B and C. Radios would be used to update other teams and allow the plan to be adjusted. If all went according to plan, Zone A would usually be open by 8:45 am when the first skiers were reaching the upper mountain.
The Avalauncher sat in storage at Whistler Mountain for several seasons before improvements were made to the technology. George Benjamin Collection.
On days when helicopters were used, eight patrollers would control Zone A while three patrollers controlled Zones B and C from the air. The helicopter was not, however, without its shortcomings. Helicopter use was limited by the weather and reportedly eliminated the “feel” for the snow that teams learned while hiking.
Avalanche control is only one focus of the virtual Land of Thundering Snow exhibit, but it is one with which many are familiar in Whistler. Though we will not be able to host an opening event, we hope to see many of you (from a distance and a few at a time) at the physical exhibit over the winter.
Do you have an avalanche story you’d like to share?
The Whistler Museum will be opening Land of Thundering Snow, a traveling exhibit on avalanches from the Revelstoke Museum & Archives, on December 17. Because we will not be able to hold an opening event in person, we are putting together online content with a more local perspective to complement the exhibit.
As part of this, we are seeking short (3 – 5 minutes) avalanche-related stories from community members to be shared virtually. These stories could be recorded in any way that is convenient for you (using a phone, setting up a video chat with us via Zoom or other platform, or any other way). Videos would then be shared on the Whistler Museum’s social media in the days leading up to the exhibit opening.
If you have a story that you would like to share, or if you have any questions, please contact us at events@whistlermuseum.org or give us a call at 604-932-2019.
If you are interested in taking a look at Revelstoke Museum’s virtual exhibit of Land of Thundering Snow, check it out here.
